Many of our favorite flowers and vegetables are started from garden seeds. It is an enriching process that for a small cost can provide an abundance of garden plants.
There are many sources for garden seeds. The prospective gardener can save seeds from favorite plants each year. This is not the most successful way to preserve plant traits, if the parent plants are hybrids. They will not always grow true to seed. For hybrid varieties the gardener should perhaps stick with plants or vegetative reproduction.
Another way to obtain seeds is to join a club or cooperative that exchanges seeds. This is an especially nice way to obtain seeds for heirloom flowers and vegetables. Heirloom seeds can also be ordered online. Heirloom vegetables grown from seed are said to be flavorful and the plants are supposed to be very durable. The flowers that grow from heirloom seeds have an “antique” or classic appearance and are lovely as well.
Many of the well known garden companies are now online. In the past people would get the actual catalog in hand right after Christmas. The gardener would plan his plantings and shop through the well known growers to find just the right combination of things to grow in the New Year. Starting garden seeds indoors is a way of lengthening the growing season at the same time as making winter seem somewhat shorter.
Other sources of garden seeds are brick and mortar garden shops, found in nearly every community. Mass merchants and even grocery stores have racks of garden seeds just as spring rolls around. Hardware and home stores have garden seeds and everything you might need to go with them, like tools and sprinklers and fertilizer for growing. You can buy peat pots or soil mixes for starting garden seeds at home. Garden seeds help us move toward success in our gardens.